The ominous rainy weather and dreary atmosphere when I was in Basey, Samar was nothing as long as I could get the chance to watch women in Basey’s Saob Cave weave their magic mats just as their mothers did before them. I crossed the San Juanico Bridge from Leyte with Irene Magallon (Sta. Barbara’s Tourism […]
Author: Betsy Gazo
Lifestyle
National Museum’s Mobile Museum Boxes at the University of the Philippines-Tacloban College
The Leyte-Samar Heritage Center in the campus of the University of the Philippines Visayas Tacloban College is an appropriate venue for the Mobile Museum Boxes Project 2019-2020 of the National Museum of the Philippines. The very door one enters is a narra door sculpted on the exterior by Palo-born self-taught artist Archie Zabala. It shows […]
They say that most Filipinos have Chinese blood. As for me, I really wouldn’t know unless I have my DNA tested. My only claim to Chinese ancestry is through Padre Mariano Gomez of Gomburza who was of Filipino-Chinese-Spanish ancestry and who is included among the Chinoys of Bahay Tsinoy in Intramuros. The good padre was […]
I’m going to take an irreverent stance toward Ramon Hofilena, he who resides famously in the Manuel Hofilena Ancestral House in Silay that claims to be the first ancestral house in the city that opened to the public as a museum. Why not? I have been the butt of his enduring insult all these years […]
When I was taking guests around one huge ancestral house in Negros, I told a lady guest that I have been inside this 1890’s mansion several times but had not experienced anything supernatural. We were on the ground floor at the patio where the horses’ stables used to be. This woman was gifted with the […]
Let’s talk about Hiligaynon, the lilting language spoken by inhabitants of Negros Occidental and the provinces of Panay Island, and even in Romblon, Masbate and Palawan. Forget about baybayin and let us Negrenses and Ilonggos first master Hiligaynon, alternately termed “Ilonggo” the latter referring to Iloilo culture and people. The Hiligaynon language never fails to […]
To mention “Bacolod City” is to mention the Masskara Festival;to mention the Masskara Festival includes the masks of Jojo Vito in one breath. Meet Jojo Vito, entrepreneur, artist, college professor, management consultant, travel enthusiast and multi-awarded blogger, also known as the man behind the Jojo Vito Designs Gallery. If his face is familiar, it’s because […]
We lifestyle bloggers have it so good. We get to try out a new restaurant; we travel free of charge; we spend the night in posh hotels; we lounge around by the pool like a beauty pageant candidate; we shoot a photo here and there, here and there, like we have all the time and […]
One of my favorite buildings in Downtown Bacolod is the La Purissima Concepcion along Locsin-Cuadra Streets (or Cuadra-Locsin, if you prefer). It is with good reason for a heritage-lover like me to want this building preserved for the future. The La Purissima is the only pre-war survivor of the Big Fire of 1955 that gutted […]
Perhaps the squid population in the waters of Northern Negros do not know their role in prospering the coastal areas there. These ten-armed marine animals are carnivorous and feed on fish and crustaceans. Some live on the surface while the others live in the depths of the sea. Not surprisingly, our seas are rich enough […]
